Today, more than ever, people are on the move travelling by car, for the most part, to different places near and far. The presence of an infant or baby usually has not impeded such travel. In fact, an entire industry has developed geared to the design and production of baby carrying or moving devices to facilitate travel with an infant. Some of the presently existing baby carrying or moving devices are disclosed in the patent art and are as follows.
U.S. Pats. No. 2,864,429 to Combs, U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,548 to Briner and U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,492 to Peterson disclose baby or infant car seats. These seats are adapted to be employed in an automobile such as by hooking the seats on top of the back of a car seat as disclosed in Briner, U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,548, by hooking the infant seat in the crevice formed between the back of the automobile seat and the automobile seat itself, or by attaching the infant seat to the dashboard as disclosed in Combs, U.S. Pat. No. 2,864,429. Other types of infant seats are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,101,972 to Laughlin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,206,247 to Johnson and U.S. Pat. No. 3,290,092 to Howard. The infant seats disclosed in these patents are portable and can be carried into a car and connected to the automobile seat or merely made to rest on the automobile seat.
Many other types of combination infant seats and car seats are also known, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,206,247 to Johnson and U.S. Pat. No. 3,528,701 to Laughlin. In addition, combination infant car seats and strollers are also known such as disclosed in U.S. Pats. No. 2,803,468 to Thompson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,083,997 to Chreist, U.S. Pat. No. 3,549,164 to Raynor and U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,998 to Boudreau et al.
Other portable combination units are known such as the combination bed and seat as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,115,364 to Berlin, and the combination chair, or car seat as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,976 to Messier. In addition, infant carbeds are known such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,579,674 to Blais et al.
There is no question that the infant carrier means, such as those described in the above-mentioned patents fulfill a great need and are extremely useful in moving an infant from one location to another location. However, all of the above carrier means or moving means have a common disadvantage, namely, they do not provide protection to the infant when the infant is being moved, for example, from indoors to an outdoor location or to another indoor location, during inclement weather. In fact, until now, it appears that no infant carrier means are available which include shielding means for shielding the infant from inclement or severely cold weather.
The concept of providing shielding means for chairs or like articles is known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,166,832 to Wenker discloses a sun shade attachment for deck chairs. U.S. Pat. No. 2,243,984 to Singlewald discloses a combination folding chair, canopy and sun shade. However, the shielding means disclosed in these patents would not appear to be useful for protecting or shielding an infant or other person seated in such chairs from inclement weather or cold weather.
It is known to provide shielding means for ski lift chairs, such as disclosed in U.S. Pats. No. 2,985,224 to Sowder, U.S. Pat. No. 3,008,761 to McIlvaine and U.S. Pat. No. 3,556,014 to Rudkin. However, the shielding means disclosed in these patents are of somewhat complicated design and would not be readily adaptable for use in conjunction with an infant carrier.